[MD] The End of Faith - Spirituality

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Ham]
Arlo chimed in wanting to parse the data.  Apparently it's the number 
of individuals affected rather than the principle (value?) of freedom 
that's important to him.

[Arlo]
Arlo chimed in to point out the manipulative rhetoric of your 
question. How you define "not free" is significant. Do you mean, a 
society where every one is imprisoned but fed three meals a day? Who 
on earth would choose this?

And if you are talking taxation, then would you choose a society 
where no one pays taxes and hundreds of thousands are hungry, or one 
where everyone pays a dollar and everyone is fed? Is that "not free"? 
To have to pay one dollar in taxes to ensure no one is hungry? Or 
would one dollar be okay, but 80% of our income  make us "not free"?

So you see, when you are asking this question, you really need to 
define upfront the parameters. Otherwise you are just pulling people 
into ridiculously inane strawmen arguments.

Also, this built-in notion that "collectivization" makes people "not 
free" is ridiculous. Am I "not free" because we have public 
libraries? Am I "not free" because we have public state and federal 
parks and lands? Am I "not free" because we have public roadways and 
waterways? All of these are "collectivist", and yet I wonder how many 
people would say they are enslaved or "not free" because of them? 
What about the collectivist police and military programs? Are we "not 
free" because of these? Should we privatize our police and military 
so we can "be free"?

In other words, Ham, leave this kind of bunk for the morons of talk radio.